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Writing methods compared and contrasted
Are our writing methods like chalk and cheese? Iain and I decided to compare our writing methods, so we devised a list of questions, and then each answered them WITHOUT peeking, just for once. The results are interesting. When we looked through our answers we realised that we could not have written Clovenhoof sitting side by…
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Greater than the sum of our parts?
We’re both really pleased with Clovenhoof. It needs editing and polishing but it’s clear that we have created something that we’re really proud of. If it is greater than the sum of our parts, how did that happen? I’m not sure I have all of the answers, but here are a few thoughts. Different skills…
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Chicken!
Actual chicken. Owned by Iain. I was hunting through old emails recently, looking for some detail that I knew we’d talked about, before we’d set up our Dropbox structure. Ancient History! I started to realise just how far we’d come, and how quickly. From the very first tentative shall we collaborate? email to having a…
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People who inspired us
We blogged previously about what made us decide to collaborate. There was a workshop at Birmingham Writers Group where we explored some collaborative writing techniques, and talked about examples of famous writers who had made it work. I had wanted to try it for years, after reading the experiences of Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman…
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How did we avoid these collaborative writing pitfalls?
Empirical Study on Collaborative Writing: What do co-authors do, use, and like? Sylvie Noël & Jean-Marc Robert I came across this interesting paper about the co-authoring of documents. Most of the research is about collaborative writing in the workplace or in academia, but it’s full of interesting things. I’m not going to reproduce what it says, you…
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Beginning Paragraphs
Douglas Adams knew a thing or two about great openings I thought for a while that Iain would need to come round and maybe administer drugs, in the way that the A-Team used to ambush Mr T to get him on a plane. Why? To make me stop tinkering with the opening paragraph of the…
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Feedback from Birmingham Writers’ Group
We had feedback this week on two of the chapters we’ve written for the Clovenhoof novel. To make life interesting, these were chapters three and six, as we decided it made more sense to start in the middle. We’re still happy with that decision, as Iain has just written the beginning, and felt it came…
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End of Year Round-up
Statistics Blog entries made 42 Total words written for manuscript 28973 Pubs used for planning 3 Tellings-off from old ladies 1 Church services disrupted 1 Copies of Birmingham A-Z defaced 1 Bored children made to endure planning sessions 2 Index cards used for fun planning games numerous Thoughts on the process so far Heide…
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Creativity in the Christmas Carnage.
Elf sorts his baubles At this time of year, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with a million things other than writing. If you get a break from over-eating, over-drinking and over-preparing for Christmas then how do you make the best of that time for creativity? I have some thoughts on this. It’s my belief that…